Friday, March 20, 2015

Make Sure Not to Run Green Lights in Managua

Riding around the lobby of Via Via Hotel

Staying
at the Via Via in Leon was a relief. It was a chill place to catch up
on rest and recover from what was a very loooong and hot border crossing
day. But Leon certainly didn’t offer any respite from the heat with
temperatures peaking around 110F (43C) in the shade.

Seb and Kim from
Wandering Souls had met a reporter for the Nicaraguan National News the
day before we arrived, who was interested in interviewing motorbikers
traveling through Nicaragua. They kindly invited us to join and the news
people picked us up at Via Via and toured us through Leon until
we arrived at a picturesque spot to do the interview. It was a fun
experience and hopefully everything we said was more or less
intelligible

From
Via Via we headed out early to beat the heat in hopes of taking a dip
in Lake Apoyo by mid-afternoon. Everything was on target in Managua
until Seb went through a green light which a second later turned to orange,
keeping the rest of us stuck at the light. He pulled over to wait for
us, and the cops waiting at that intersection took it as their cue to
harass him and ultimately charge him with running a red light. They were
awful and crooked, and basically said “We’re the cops and if we say the
light was red, it doesn’t matter what you and your friends saw.” They
also added a charge for crossing a solid white line, which Seb says he
also didn’t do. And while we were waiting for Seb, the officers took
David’s information and also charged him with crossing the solid white
line (which David did indeed do). Naturally, Seb was outraged - we all
were - but Seb was, ahem, the most vocal about it - hence an awesome
photo he got of the officer yelling back at him. (Check out their report of the incident here.)The officers had Seb
and David’s licenses and so we decided to head to the Police Station to
file a complaint.

"Discussing" lies and corruption

Now they have David's Papers

Seb and Kim return and all "discussions" end - to the police station we go!

2 police, 5 bikes

We
found the station easily enough, handed in our passports for badges,
and were led back to the Internal Affairs office. They seem to take
accusations of corruption seriously. I explained to the secretary at
Internal Affairs what happened and she told us we would have to wait
for the Commissioner. After about 20 minutes, a translator arrived and
wrote down Seb’s account of what happened. This was shown to the
Commissioner (I guess?) and we then had to go to the Traffic Police
Station with this document and speak to the jefe there.

Waiting to be seen at the traffic police station

He
was rather kind, looked at the tickets, raised his eyebrows, hardly looked at the paperwork and told us not to worry about it. “To go find a
place to stay, have a beer, and then return between 7am and 8am to get
the licenses back before the paperwork for the tickets would be lodged.”

Not
so bad. We all decided to head to Apoyo, but en route, Seb and Kim
decided that it made more sense to stay in the city so they didn’t have
to back-track the next morning. David decided to do the same. Roel and I
contemplated staying, but after standing outside in the heat
(110+ degrees F) all day watching the bikes while the rest us of were
sitting in the air conditioned police stations, Roel was really eager to
get to a cooler area. Apoyo would not only be cooler, our arrival
would be rewarded with a dip in the lake.

Well, best laid plans,
and blah blah blah. We wound up taking 40+ turns trying to get out of
Managua (thanks to roadworks detours) and didn’t make it to the lake
until dark. We did suss out the best spots to stay (Laguna has good moto
parking but expensive dorms… $14 for a bed.) And Paradiso, which was
full when we arrived, had good parking, better prices and was BEAUTIFUL. Fortunately,
we were able to secure reservations for everyone for the next night
and we headed to Laguna to bunk up.

Paradiso... no joke.Licenses
back in their possession, David, Seb and Kim arrived the next morning
and we spent the rest of the day swimming in the lake and letting the
stress of the previous day wash away. While in Managua, they had found out that police handing out tickets for running green lights is actually a common ploy in that city. UGH.We decided to ride in the
direction of San Juan del Sur together and have wound up all liking the
looks of Granada so much, we’ve stopped at a hostel here for the night. I
think it was the presence of an Irish Pub that sold David on the idea
;) And the rest of us were just keen to have an ice cream :)

What traffic looks like in Granada

"Do we stay, or do we go?"

Riding
with David makes for some great photos. As you can see, between the
Africa Twin and the horse/carriage, is David's bike laid down on the
sidewalk, much like a 8 year old would lay down his bicycle before
running to get an ice cream cone. David was kindly checking hostel
prices for the group at this point. It's devastating to know that in a short time, Lake Nicaragua will become a sea passage, thereby killing much of the wildlife that currently call this lake home.